"A space travel to Mercury and Venus"  Meeting in Bulgaria

The activity was a teaching paradigm with a dual approach: the facts and figures of Mercury and Venus, the planets, and the mythology dealing with the two deities, Hermes/Mercury and Aphrodite/Venus. According to the project's methodological outlook, teaching sessions need to be divided in two parts, one dealing with science and scientific data about the planets of our solar system, and the other dealing with Mythology, which culturally supports the ideas behind the names of the planets and the stories involved. The activity introduced the following innovative teaching methodologies, as described in the application, as well as a variety of content approaches, inspired by these two subjects: a) peer-teaching: the host school and the coordinator of the project there opted for involving their students into preparing the content of the classes as well as conducting them. Therefore, the Bulgarian students, who work on the project, had prepared PowerPoint presentations of the content, which also included e-Activities with online educational tools (e.g Kahoot), as well as follow-up activities, which dealt with all the skills (listening, writing, speaking and reading), through which the participating students from Greece, Portugal, Hungary and Poland interacted with their peers. The host students took the teaching/conducting responsibility in turns, while the rest worked in groups with the hosted participants. Teachers kept a side, moderating role. b) classes for different linguistic levels, starting from an A2 class prepared by the Portuguese teacher and conducted by herself and her students, using quiz-like sets of activities and engaging students in a four-skill interaction, to a B1 class prepared by the Polish teacher, who designed and conducted a class about a woman's image throughout history to present day, with a variety of language activities which ended up with an artistic production of the ideal woman and a students' presentation session. Meanwhile, the Hungarian teacher conducted a class of vocabulary development, which gave the students the opportunity to revisit all the newly-introduced content vocabulary and expand it, both with dictionary and context activities. The Greek school conducted a threefold class, which used a brief theatrical act as a warm-up activity (four-lined texts, in a poetic mode, to introduce the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth, acted out by the Greek students), an analyzing- scientific - data session, which got the students involved into looking for data in small texts and organizing them in relevant groups and an image-analysis-based class, where images were read as texts and signs were the input of cultural knowledge, concerning Hermes/Mercury and his symbols. The activity followed the normal school timetable and the class sessions were in accordance with the teaching hours available.

Day 1

Day 2

PROGRAMME OF ACTIVITIES
RUSE, BULGARIA / 14/10/2019 - 18/10/2019

The third activity of the Erasmus+/KA229 project «CLIL threads and trends in the solar-system Labyrinth», under the title «A space travel to Mercury and Venus», took place in SUEE «Konstantin-Kiril Filosof» in Ruse, Bulgaria from October 14, 2019, to October 18, 2019. The timetable of the activities was as follows :

Day 1

The international groups were warmly welcomed to the school by the Headteacher, Dobromira Nikolova, the project coordinator of the school, Petya Dimitrova and the students, who work on the project. Presents were also exchanged. There was a short welcome event with songs, sung by small groups of students of the school from different grades. Then Mrs. Petya Dimitrova and her students guided the international groups around the school, where they had the chance to visit some classes, talk to teachers and get an idea of the classes in different subjects. Later, the hosted groups received presents from the coordinator and the students. In the afternoon, the international groups were guided around the city of Ruse by the project coordinator.

Day 2

Classes on Mercury, the planet, and God Mercury were carried out by the Bulgarian students, working on the project. Classes combined PowerPoint presentations and e-activities, all of which were carried out in groups. By the end of the day, the students got involved in art production, namely the design of a 3-D solar system. Students painted the planets and moons in all different colours and sizes to pin them onto an orbital solar- system board. The afternoon session of classes included specially-designed lessons carried out by the Greek and Hungarian teachers on different aspects concerning Mercury and Venus, as well as a small theatrical warm-up activity. The Bulgarian project coordinator, the Greek project coordinator, Konstantina Zavalari, two of the Bulgarian participating students and one of the Greek students gave an interview to the National Bulgarian Television about the project and its potential.

Day 3

Classes had to do with Venus, the planet, and goddess Venus/Aphrodite. Peer-teaching classes eagerly engaged the international groups, as the Bulgarian students conducted many teaching activities to get the students acquainted with the facts and figures of the planet. The afternoon session of the classes included specially-designed lessons carried out by the Polish and Portuguese teachers, on alternative approaches and aspects, inspired by the planet and the goddess. In the evening students were hosted for dinner by Bulgarian families, while the teachers enjoyed a dinner offered by the host school.

Day 4

A whole-day trip to Kamchia, an area at the coast of the Black Sea, in Varna region, and to the private school "Yuri Gagarin" took place. The international groups and the Bulgarian students visited the premises of the school, where they had the chance to be guided around the exhibition of space technology, to watch a film about the birth of the solar system at the school's dome hall and to meet an astronaut. Groups also spent some time in the city of Varna.

Day 5

On the last day of activities, students met at school for an overall teaching session concerning the content of the activity. Students also painted the image of their ideal woman, following the class conducted by the Polish teacher, in groups and then each group presented their art product in class. Certificates of participation were distributed, the 3-D art products were pinned on the orbital board and photographs were taken. The groups arranged their next appointment in Greece and departed.